A Surrealist Nightmare
How should unemployed people react to the announcement that mental health co-ordinators are to be based in job centres, to provide cognitive behaviour therapy to help them back to work? Is this a surrealist nightmare which proves that 1984’s Big Brother is alive and kicking in twenty first century Britain? Or simply another incompetent policy generated by civil servants who are out of their depth struggling with the biggest unemployment crisis for a generation?
Don’t get me wrong. Some unemployed people suffer from mental health problems and depression. Just like some employed people do. Redundancy can lead to depression in those who tend towards it. But the idea that therapy is an essential tool in helping ordinary people back to work is so absurd as to be beyond comment. It is not therapy that the vast majority of unemployed people need. It is jobs.
Of course the policy may have been poorly communicated to the media, or the press may have reported it badly. Perhaps therapy is only to be offered to those who have genuine mental health problems, diagnosed by a competent practitioner. But if so, what are we to make of the comment attributed to Lord Layard, the government’s ‘happiness’ adviser (sic), that only a short course of cognitive behaviour therapy delivered by a therapist with no more than basic training will be necessary?
As if proof were needed, Job Centres have gone out of their way to prove their ineffectiveness during the current recession. Attacked by employers, the unemployed, politicians and career professionals alike for their sheer incompetence at helping people back to work, their greatest sin is in employing an army of poorly trained (sorry, basically trained), overworked advisers, to deliver a service that is not fit for purpose. Now they are going to offer therapy to unemployed people, delivered yet again by people with only basic training. You couldn’t make it up, could you?
Related posts:
- The Shortage Occupation List Next month the government will introduce a new list of...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Harry Freedman's new book How To Get A Job In A Recession is available now. Click here to buy.
Have the Career Energy blog sent to your inbox daily. Click on the Entries RSS link on the right of the page or set up a feed in your e-mail programme
Take our 10 minute career advice FaceBook quiz and find the right career for you. Click here.